Library director latest official to leave Ferndale

FERNDALE - City Public Library Director Doug Raber is the latest top official to leave the city for another job.

Former Mayor Craig Covey left his post to take over his newly elected position as a county commissioner this month and City Manager Robert Bruner leaves Feb. 11 to begin his new job as manager in Birmingham. About seven months ago, former Police Chief Michael Kitchen and Fire Chief Roger Schmidt took buyouts and were replaced as the city trimmed its workforce by about 20 percent because of a shrinking budget.

Raber, 60, is leaving to take a job as director at the Marion Public Library in Marion, Iowa, a town of about 32,000 in the eastern part of the state. His selection was announced Friday on the Marion Public Library's Facebook page. The Ferndale Library Board is meeting tonight at 7 p.m. at the library to discuss hiring an interim director while it begins a search for Raber's replacement.

Library Board President Ann Warner issued a statement Monday evening, but she and Raber failed to return phone calls seeking comment on his pending departure.

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"Doug Raber has resigned as director of the Ferndale Public Library effective Feb. 25, 2011," the statement reads. "While he enjoyed working with the staff, board and patrons of the library, and the Ferndale community, Doug and his wife Jessica are moving on to a new career and academic challenges outside of Michigan."

Raber was hired nearly three years ago at an $80,000 salary as the library was about to undergo a $4.5 million expansion and upgrade. The revamped library, which was nearly doubled in size to about 21,000 square feet, opened in August.

However, a hose connection failed on a new rainwater treatment over the Thanksgiving weekend and flooded the library with about 15,000 gallons of water. Library officials expect the facility to reopen next month.